THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.

IT was the pleasant harvest time,

When cellar-bins are closely stowed, And garrets bend beneath their load, And the old swallow-haunted barnsBrown-gabled, long, and full of seams Through which the moted sunlight

streams,

And winds blow freshly in, to shake

The red plumes of the roosted cocks, And the loose hay-mow's scented locks

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

On Esek Harden's oaken floor,

With many anautumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.

And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

They took their places; some by chance,

And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their choice.

How pleasantly the rising moon,

Between the shadow of the mows,
Looked on them through the great
elm-boughs!-

On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned,
On girlhood with its solid curves
Of healthful strength and painless
nerves!

And jests went round, and laughs that

made

The house-dog answer with his howl, And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;

And quaint old songs their fathers sung, In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, Ere Norman William trod their

shores;

And tales, whose merry license shook
The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
Forgetful of the hovering Dane !

But still the sweetest voice was mute
That river-valley ever heard
From lip of maid or throat of bird;

For Mabel Martin sat apart,
And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.

She sat apart, as one forbid, Who knew that none would condescend

To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.

The seasons scarce had gone their round, Since curious thousands thronged to

see

Her mother on the gallows-tree;

And mocked the palsied limbs of age,
That faltered on the fatal stairs,
And wan lip trembling with its
prayers!

Few questioned of the sorrowing child,
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.